page_title: Parochial Memories of 1758
hierarchical_section_title: Parochial Memories of 1758
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of the Marquis of Pombal (18th-century, Portuguese school)Português: Retrato do Marquês de Pombal (escola portuguesa, século XVIII)
context_page_description: The Parochial Memories of 1758 are the results of an enquiry sent to every parish in Portugal following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, by order of Sebastião de Carvalho e Melo, the Secretary of State of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom. The exercise was organised according to a plan containing sixty written questions; the compiled answers, relaying accounts on not only the damage sustained by the earthquake but also information on the local geography, demography, history, and economy, are valuable historical documents and are stored in the country's National Archive.
  Because Secretary Carvalho e Melo was the first to attempt an objective description of the broad causes and consequences of an earthquake, he is regarded as a forerunner of modern seismological scientists. By analysing and cross-referencing the parish priests' accounts, modern scientists are able to reconstruct the event with some degree of scientific precision; without the questionnaire, this would have been impossible.
context_section_description: The Parochial Memories of 1758 (Portuguese: Memórias Paroquiais de 1758) are the results of an enquiry sent to every parish in Portugal following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, by order of Sebastião de Carvalho e Melo, the Secretary of State of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom. The exercise was organised according to a plan containing sixty written questions; the compiled answers, relaying accounts on not only the damage sustained by the earthquake but also information on the local geography, demography, history, and economy, are valuable historical documents and are stored in the country's National Archive.
  Because Secretary Carvalho e Melo (today more commonly known by the title of Marquis of Pombal) was the first to attempt an objective description of the broad causes and consequences of an earthquake, he is regarded as a forerunner of modern seismological scientists. By analysing and cross-referencing the parish priests' accounts, modern scientists are able to reconstruct the event with some degree of scientific precision; without the questionnaire, this would have been impossible.
caption: Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal
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